Lodging tax revenue was up during the past year in Haywood County, and could see another boost in the new fiscal year after the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority decided to get tough on delinquent taxpayers.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority has unveiled several new strategies and initiatives this year in an effort to become the go-to organization for filmmakers and everyday visitors alike.

Despite rallying around calls for more school resource officers earlier this year, Swain County commissioners will not chip in after all to pay for the new positions as originally promised — leaving the schools to pick up the full tab themselves or lay off the officers.

The Waynesville Board of Aldermen rubberstamped a $31.8 million budget Monday, but it may just have to turn right around and approve a new one.

Cook and television personality Paula Deen has gotten into hot butter in recent weeks over allegations of racism, prompting Caesar’s Entertainment to shut the Paula Deen’s Kitchen at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Resort.

It was Groundhog Day again for the Maggie Valley Police Department.

Last year, Police Chief Scott Sutton defended his department and officers against claims that the force is too large and its budget should be slashed. This year was no different.

Haywood Community College is negotiating with the architects and contractor who worked on the college’s new Creative Arts building to figure out who owes what.

Construction on an 8,000-square-foot Waynesville skate park is visibly progressing.

Come September, a brand new $1.3 million South Main Street liquor store will open in Waynesville.

Law enforcement agencies in Western North Carolina are cracking down on drug use in the region.

Swain County commissioners last week tentatively agreed to increase the property tax rate by 3 cents to cover a budget deficit — the first property tax increase Swain has seen in more than two decades.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians could make the inmates housed in its future jail pay — literally.

Delvin Adams stood at the top a ladder leaning against the underbelly of a bridge near Harmon Den in Haywood County, banging the rustiest looking metal beam with a hammer.

Building owners in Waynesville’s historic districts may have to jump through extra hoops before undertaking renovations or alterations to their property in an effort to retain the town’s historic character. 

Judge not lest ye be judged.

The Waynesville Planning Board is delving into the town’s sign ordinance to create more uniform, yet more permissive signs in its three downtown shopping districts — greater Main Street, Frog Level and Hazelwood — something that can appease at least most business owners.

There’s been a noticeable decline in the number of ducks and geese at Lake Junaluska since a feeding ban went into effect last fall.

Waynesville officials are looking under a different couch cushion for additional revenue after losing income from sweepstakes operations and its ABC store.

For law enforcement, video gambling is like a bad case of poison ivy that keeps cropping back up all over the place, and now, it’s going after them.

Four years after Swain County leaders trashed a skewed property reassessment, the county has completed a new revaluation.

For more than a month, 25-year-old Slyenia Rhein and her three children lived in a single hotel room with her mother, her father, her sister, a dog and a cat.

Maybe someone heard my plea.

For the last two weekends, the rain, for the most part, has stayed away, giving us at least one nice day without a drop to enjoy some time outdoors. And after having my first attempt to go birding cancelled because of the weather, I was looking forward Saturday to finding out why others enjoyed the hobby so much.

After two false starts, Ghost Town in the Sky theme park in Maggie Valley remains closed this week.

Haywood County’s budget will increase by more than $2 million next fiscal year, but it will still be nearly that amount shy of the county’s pre-recession budget.

Members of the nationally acclaimed bluegrass band Balsam Range are now the bona fide ambassadors of Haywood County.

Ghost Town in the Sky did not open to much fanfare last weekend because, simply put, it didn’t open.

Despite cutting more than $50,000 from the town’s budget, Bryson City’s leaders plan to raise property taxes and town fees in the coming fiscal year.

Swain County may soon seal a deal with the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad to pay for the restoration of a steam engine in hopes it would bring more tourists to town to ride the scenic train.

Since the advent of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, tourists flocking to Bryson City and Dillsboro to ride the scenic passenger train have been the envy of neighboring communities.

When a rockslide shut down Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge in Haywood County three years ago, the N.C. Department of Transportation scrambled to clean up the massive slab that sheered off the mountain and then shore up the towering rock face against future slides.

Enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will head to the polls Tuesday, June 6, to vote in the primary election for Tribal Council.

A state bill mandating that voters show identification to cast a ballot has split opinions down the middle, with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other.

It is said that humans are fickle creatures, and if that is true, then the weather must be at least part human. For as of late, it never seems to cooperate.

The Maggie Valley Board of Aldermen have been mired in gridlock for nearly nine months.

With only four town board members at the moment — instead of the typical five — stalemates have ruled the day. From major issues to petty ones, the board has been marked by tie votes and split opinions. Infighting has become the typical interaction at meetings these days.

Signs are businesses’ equivalent to nuclear weapons.

“Everybody wants them, but you have to agree to live with them,” said Waynesville Town Planner Paul Benson. “I think what we need is a consensus on what is a reasonable approach.”

The number of homeless school children in Haywood County has risen by nearly 20 percent this year compared to last.

The county uses the definition of homelessness contained in the McKinney-Vento Act — any individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. That could mean that the children are staying with a relative temporarily, in a hotel, sleeping in a car or at a shelter.

Canton leaders are already asking how they can do better making Camp Hope available to the public after a lawsuit threatened to seize the 100-acre forested tract and rustic camp quarters away from the town.

The Haywood County historic courthouse in Waynesville will be completely re-landscaped by the end of this week, just in time for the official launch of the summer tourist season marked by Memorial Day weekend.

The county cut down all the large sugar maple trees from the courthouse lawn over the winter, and it has been barren ever since. The new landscape design calls for smaller trees and fewer of them.

The new trees will be planted in the nick of time for the first downtown street festival of the year this Saturday, although the lawn itself will take longer to restore.

Last week, county maintenance employees planted six Kousa Dogwood trees along the Depot Street side of the courthouse and a sugar maple on the right side of the historic courthouse, between it and the new justice center. 

The remaining plantings — two Yoshino Cherries, a Serbian spruce and a few shrubs —should be delivered by Wednesday (May 22 and promptly put in the ground.

“We will be ready to go,” said Dale Burris, county facilities and maintenance director. “It’s a simple fact of digging a hole and putting it in correctly.”

— By Caitlin Bowling

Even though an “overwhelming majority” of community leaders in Haywood County support a lodging tax increase, a state bill that would have done just that died in the state legislature last week.

Out of all the problems each county faces, how do you one narrow them down to focus on just three?

The Haywood County Board of Education has concluded that the cost of putting officers in elementary schools is not worth raising property taxes.

Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park is scheduled to kick off its 2013 season Memorial Day weekend, thanks to the grit, passionate and determination of its new owner and longtime champion Alaska Pressley, who has slogged ahead with her dream despite hoops and hurdles.

Twice in one week, the mountainside along Holder Branch Road in Canton slid away — and that was twice too many for 34-year-old mother of three Dara Parker.

Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Resort’s bottom line is improving steadily each year as the nation continues to recover from the recession and as the casino expands its offerings.

About 30 cosmetology students stand at their individual workstations cutting, coloring and chatting; they are elbow-to-elbow and back-to-back, cramped as they cater to paying clients in the small salon room at Haywood Community College.

Haywood Community College has asked for more than $1.4 million from the county for building and renovations projects on campus in the coming fiscal year.

State of housing in Cherokee to be surveyed

A federal study researching housing conditions on Indian reservations across the U.S. will include the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

In 2009, Congress mandated that the Department of Housing and Urban Development assess housing needs among people living on reservations. The study will determine need based on demographic, social and economic conditions.

The goal is to amass “clear, credible and consistent information that can inform Congress,” according to a resolution approved by Tribal Council last week.

Although all tribes can complete surveys online, the Eastern Band is one of 40 randomly selected tribes whose enrolled members have a chance answer more in-depth household surveys. Selected participants will receive a $20 gift card for their time.

The in-person household survey will ask questions such as: how many people live in each residence; reasons multiple people are living in the same household; and what features the home includes.

Although only a handful of enrolled members of the Eastern Band will fill out in the in-person survey, researchers are collecting multiple types of information to give a more complete picture of life on reservations. They will look at readily available information such as Census data, conduct in-person and phone interviews, and involve background interviews and literature reviews.

Data collection began in January and will continue until January next year, with preliminary findings scheduled for completion in June 2014. The results will not affect how much funding individual tribes receive but could influence overall allocations for the federal Indian Housing Block Grant program.

Cherokee leaders call for full transcripts

In an effort to increased accuracy and transparency, meetings of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Tribal Council will now be captured with a verbatim transcript.

Council Member Tommye Saunooke presented a resolution to council last week asking that all discussion at budget and Tribal Council meetings be transcribed word for word to keep an accurate history of what happened.

“I don’t want a summary. I want verbatim,” Saunooke said.

The resolution suggested hiring a court reporter for the job.

Council Members Terri Henry, Bo Taylor and B Ensley all voiced their agreement with Saunooke. However, Ensley questioned whether the tribe needed to hire outside help.

“I agree with what Tommye is trying to do here,” Ensley said. “But I am opposed to contracting someone to do this.”

The tribe already has employees who are capable or could learn to take verbatim notes, he argued. In the end, the council unanimously voted to take verbatim notes of its meetings but to contract a current employee to transcribe them.

Council’s monthly meetings are already broadcast on the tribe’s own cable channel as well as online, and are widely viewed.

Cherokee will be the only government entity in the region that offers complete transcripts of government proceedings. Towns and counties keep minutes of meetings, which are written as summaries of what transpired and vary in how comprehensive they are.

— By Caitlin Bowling

Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Tribal Council took issue with a construction budget increase for the tribe’s justice center and jail during their meeting last week, a sign of overall displeasure with past and current projects demanding more funds.